Conservatives vs. Idealism

Despite the vaguely united opposition to Obama, important fundamental differences remain between the various different groups. For a reminder that Objectivists have a lot less in common with Conservatives than it sometimes seems look no further than Bill Whittle's latest video essay:
A Tale of Two Revolutions: The War of Ideas & the Tragedy of the Unconstrained Vision
or shorter URL: http://tinyurl.com/m3mo6a.
I disagree with his analysis of the essential difference between the American and French revolutions, as well as his implicit claim that the Founding Fathers were really "Conservative" thinkers who did not think very highly of human nature. Whittle relies on Thomas Sowell but this is also Dennis Prager's favorite topic: Liberals think people are basically good and Conservatives do not.

It's not that there's not some truth in the criticism of Rousseau and his followers. Certainly they had a corrupt concept of human nature as changeable and that ultimately lead to attempts to make a new man through indoctrination and mass terror. More importantly they were less individualistic than the Americans who relied on Locke. And most importantly, Rousseau was the beginning of the reaction to the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. He explicitly rejected much of those periods stood for.

However, my main problem with Whittle's argument is that he's saying that human beings are basically low, corrupt, and miserable people who deserve no better than freedom. I completely agree with Ayn Rand that that is a completely immoral and uninspiring argument that will continue to drive anybody with an ounce of self esteem into the left. Man may have chosen to do much evil at various points in history but human nature is not defined by statistics but by its essence, namely by the fact that man survives by the use of reason, a faculty that he can choose to use or not. It is because throughout much of history people have not thought nor acted rationally (despite much recent rhetoric to the contrary) that numerous disasters have been imposed on men throughout history. But there were many times when men did act rationally and morally and laid the foundation for a much better future, personal or global. It is those men that ought to be regarded, not as supermen or isolated aberrations, but man at his best, the potential that is available for anybody to achieve, through his own efforts, as long as he commits to think and act accordingly.

It is this ideal that ought to be promoted by lovers of liberty if they hope to inspire people to fight for their freedom. It is profoundly uninspiring to fight, as apparently Bill Whittle and Thomas Sowell do, with Hobbes' view of human nature as the most that can be achieved and freedom as the condition we have to settle for because we are no good. Freedom is the condition of the proud rational individualist who esteems himself and expects others to do the same. Whatever the condition appropriate for those who regard themselves as imperfect, flawed beings, who dare not aspire to any ideals, it is not freedom.

I'm back... & Chimpanzee Intelligence

I have been blogging since 2003. Although in 2008 I had a high of 77 post, I have had only four posts so far this year. I aim to change that. I am setting myself a goal to make 2009 a new record for both quantity and quality of posts.

Let me start out with a link to an interesting review featured today at Arts & Letters Daily. Helene Guldberg reviews the book Not a Chimp: The hunt to find the genes that make us human, by Jeremy Taylor. Guldberg writes that:

...despite the dedication of a number of primatologists, the cognitive and linguistic abilities of the great apes have never surpassed those of a two-year-old child.

Taylor sets out to argue that it is ‘as wrong as it is misguided’ to ‘exaggerate the narrowness of the gap between chimpanzees and ourselves’: ‘It plays into the hands of our natural propensity to anthropomorphise our pets and other animals, and even our inanimate possessions, and it has allowed us to distort what the science is trying to tell us.’ His aim is ‘to set the record straight and restore chimpanzees to arm’s length’.[emphasis added]

This is a topic with greater implications than the somewhat obvious fact that man is the only rational animal. In the same way that communists were once able to pretend that they have a scientific answer to religion, so today, animal rights activists such as PETA, frequently claim to have a scientific basis for their belief that all animals should have legal rights. That fight is currently going on in the efforts to establish legal rights for primates. And of course, the religious opponents of such rights, such as Dennis Prager, are quick to point out that it is secular ideas that equate the value of human beings and animals:

9. If there is no God, humans and "other" animals are of equal value. Only if one posits that humans, not animals, are created in the image of God do humans have any greater intrinsic sanctity than baboons. This explains the movement among the secularized elite to equate humans and animals.

Strictly speaking, Prager approaches the topic from his belief that morality must have a divine origin. Nevertheless, if science claims that a chimpanzee's genetic code is 98.4% identical to man's, then Prager can claim that as far as secular science is concerned there is no significant basis for differing value judgments between the two primates. However, if secular scientists are arguing that there is quite a difference between man and chimpanzees, if they claim that:

...despite the very small difference in the gene coding sequence between humans and chimps, some of the important genetic differences are in genes that regulate a whole host of other genes. So a small change can make an immense difference. The genetic difference between us and chimps may be much greater than the 1.6 per cent figure implies, as our uniqueness is based on a powerful network of gene regulation, he argues.
...
Unlike any other animal ‘we build on very modest foundations and blow them up to extraordinary dimensions of power and complexity’, which has ‘led from the invention of the wheel, less than six thousand years ago, to the wheeling out of the latest passenger jet’.

then these significant secular differences could imply significant secular value differences. Of course, the full value implications require a proper identification of what values are and how they relate to man -- a topic on which Ayn Rand had a thing or two to say.

If there is no God (Part IV)

This is the conclusion of my criticisms of Dennis Prager's article on what would happen in the absence of God. In Part I, I criticized Prager's attempts to conclude that morality and meaning would suffer if there were no God. In Part II, I denied that a world without God somehow means that man has no free will. In Part III, I attacked the claim that the absence of God necessarily leads to some kind of cultural deterioration.

What's left? Well, I promised to still deal with Prager's claim that "Without God, humanist hubris is almost inevitable" as well as that "without God there are no inalienable human rights."

Let's start with the issue of rights.

Yes, it is my understanding that the Founding Fathers, when defending individual rights, relied on the Natural Law ideas of Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and others. The Natural Law tradition substantially based these ideas on the existence of a God, who created and maintains the natural order and, as the creator of man, endowed him with inalienable rights.

Despite the enormously important and praiseworthy achievement of the Founders in finally explicitly recognizing individual rights as part of a government and its Constitution, there are in fact quite a few problems in with the specific understanding of rights possessed by the Founders, not the least of which would be that basing the idea of rights on the existence of a fantastic being, would, as soon as more intellectuals started realizing the difficulties with the existence of such a being, put the whole Natural Law-based rights case in jeopardy.

But fortunately, and once again, Prager is wrong. The case for man's rights does not depend on the existence of God. Ayn Rand has shown that rights can be defended entirely on the basis of man's nature combined with a certain morality.

The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.

The reason for the confusion in the minds of many Conservatives is again their inability to understand that individual rights are an objective moral principle. Its objectivity implies that it connects aspects both of man's consciousness (his values -- he is worthy of living) as well as of existence (his nature -- man survives by reason). It is not simply that rights are a kind of inherent hidden property of man that we would see if we were the right glasses. Nor do moral principles fall from the sky. They must be discovered, validated and practiced and in this case protected if they are to serve their function which is to further man's life. If men want to live in a society in which their rights are protected, they must recognize each others rights and create and sustain a government that is vigilant about protecting these rights. Frankly, God simply doesn't enter this picture at all.

In fact, the history of the 20th century notwithstanding, it is quite clear that belief in God as such does not lead to rights at all as the history of Europe from the 5th to the 16th century makes clear. God was very much in men's minds during those eleven centuries but individual rights were nowhere to be found. If one cares to study the periods involved, then it's clear that it was increasing emphasis of reason and the efficacy of the individual mind that ultimately lead some Christians to support the concept of individual rights, arguably in contradiction to much of their recent theology.

This is not, of course to deny the horrors of the 20th century, but here again it simply means that belief in God is not the only, nor necessarily the worst of the causes of man's inhumanity to man. But if we hope to do better, we ought to reject both religions and secular ideologies that differ only in the degree and type of mysticism, irrationality, collectivism and altruism. This is because rights depend on rationality, egoism, and individualism, ideas not usually associated with belief in God.

Finally, turning now to the issue of "humanist hubris," Prager writes:

12. Without God, humanist hubris is almost inevitable. If there is nothing higher than man, no Supreme Being, man becomes the supreme being.

I admit I have trouble understanding exactly what Prager is getting at here. Of course, the statement is almost trivially true. Among the religious, man may be highest among the animals but he is the equivalent of a speck of dust compared to the infinite, omnipotent and omniscient God. If such a God does not exist then man becomes the "supreme being."

Again, what does Prager mean here? He is surely aware, since that's one of his claims in the very same essay, that some secular people (certainly not me!) hold that humans and animals are of equal value. So then does Prager contradict his own claim here? On the one hand absence of God leads to humans and animals being of the same value, on the other hand, if there is no God man becomes the supreme being. Well which is it? Or could it be that the absence of God has no specific consequences, that atheism is simply the absence of belief in God and it's one's positive ideas that are the cause of one's values?

But I'll leave all this aside because I'm more interested in a deeper point raised by Prager's claim. I actually agree with Prager that, absent a God, man becomes the supreme being. This is not a problem for me but it seems to be a problem for Prager. Why?

The answer can be seen in the very same essay in Prager's various claims of what happens to men who operate without believing in a God. Apparently, Prager thinks that such men are basically irrational, immoral, uninspired, crude, profane, determined by their genes and environment, and devoid of meaning or purpose. Thus when such beings come to regard themselves as supreme, it would, in Prager's view, be a disaster. Such beings need to know that there's something above them to force them to behave as civilized beings rather than savage beasts.

Men are not born believing in God. Children are not aware of such an idea until it is taught them by their elders. Thus I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Prager regards atheistic individuals as for the most part no better than children (and particularly badly behaved children at that) who need to be taught to obey a higher authority.

Prager has over the years claimed that one of the most important differences between himself and his intellectual opponents is the fact that while he believes that "we are born with tendencies toward both good and evil," they believe that "people are basically good." On the face of it, Prager's attitude seems balanced but on closer examination, and based on the way Prager regards atheistic man described above, it seems far more likely that Prager regards man as basically bad, though he grants that with enough application of faith and force something good may come out.

How to respond? At this point I have to quote Ayn Rand on man:

Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice.

By virtue of his rational faculty, man is the supreme being on earth. But by the fact that the faculty is volitional, i.e., his to control via his choices, he is capable of both great achievement and great destruction. However, it is not his destructive capabilities that distinguish man but his creative abilities because when he is creative he is actualizing and fulfilling his fundamental nature as a rational being, whereas when he is destructive, he merely returns to the level of animals, even if he is capable of more destruction than they are. Thus man at his best is good. Man at his best is worthy of admiration and even of worship. I conclude with another quote from Ayn Rand:

Do not confuse “man worship” with the many attempts, not to emancipate morality from religion and bring it into the realm of reason, but to substitute a secular meaning for the worst, the most profoundly irrational elements of religion. For instance, there are all the variants of modern collectivism (communist, fascist, Nazi, etc.), which preserve the religious-altruist ethics in full and merely substitute “society” for God as the beneficiary of man’s self-immolation....
...
The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man’s highest potential and strive to actualize it. . . . [Man-worshipers are] those dedicated to the exaltation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth.

If there is no God (Part III)

In this post I thought I would tackle Prager's claims that without God there is a cultural deterioration in terms of art, language, and the equation of the value of animals with people (I'll leave "hubris" for another post). I happen to agree that all these are indeed disturbing aspects in today's world but I would put the blame not on the absence of God but the general irrationality of the culture. Interestingly, Prager argues that it is the absence of belief in God that leads to this irrationality. He writes:

Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed that men's and women's natures are basically the same, that perceived differences between the sexes are all socially induced. Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm.

There are several problems with Prager's above claims. The first and foremost is that it portrays a deep ignorance of the history of philosophy. All the secular irrational doctrines had their origin in religious and theistic thinkers that severely undermined the efficacy of reason. Philosophers such Rene Descartes (a Catholic) and Immanuel Kant (a Lutheran), among others, did much to undermine reason and the secular thinkers that followed them simply pushed their ideas to their logical conclusion with the ultimate result being the absurdities of 20th century philosophy. The result of the decay of philosophy was a deterioration in all the humanities and arts. As philosophers claimed to have conclusively shown that no absolutes and no standards existed, it is no surprise to see the obvious results on art and language.

But there is no reason to think that secular rational and principled people that speak politely, produce great art, and think clearly about important issues cannot exist. I dare say I know quite a few myself. The culture does not have to continue to be dominated by ugliness, coarseness and irrationality but it seems to me that substituting one kind of irrationality for another is hardly a reasonable solution.

As to the particular irrationality of regarding humans and animals of equal value, I don't think that opinion is limited to secular thinkers. Certain religions of the East also take this view. If one understands that value for human beings depends on holding man's life as the standard and man's happiness as the goal of life, then I think there's really no issue at all. Admittedly this is not self-evident but thanks to Ayn Rand, the means of establishing objective values has been achieved. Animals may have value for man, but they are not of the same value to man as man.

This series concludes with Part IV.

Update 8/24/2008: Added link to Part IV.

If there is no God (Part II)

Since I'm a little tired tonight, I'll leave most of Prager's remaining points for my next installment, and confine myself to Prager's claim that "if there is no God, the human being has no free will." According to Prager's eighth point:

Only if one posits human creation by a Creator that transcends genes and environment who implanted the ability to transcend genes and environment can humans have free will.

One of the more frustrating aspects of this particular claim is that one seems to find quite a few atheists who would agree with it. It is a depressing fact that determinism appears to be a far too prevalent opinion among many scientifically oriented people. But we cannot go by the popularity or unpopularity of a point of view. Is Prager correct to say that without God there's no free will? No. In fact both Prager and the materialists who deny free will are wrong. The fact of free will is axiomatic and it is not in fact possible to rationally deny it. Those who attempt to deny it are implicitly relying on their ability to choose their own views by their own free choice -- otherwise they would be determined to believe in determinism and would have no choice in the matter. They are saying in effect: I freely choose to believe in the fact that we are all determined -- an obvious contradiction. Thus, contrary to what Prager suggests our genes and environment do not determine our thoughts and actions. Determinism is false, even in a world without God.

Furthermore, notwithstanding much rhetoric to the contrary, an omniscient God, far from supporting the idea that man has free will, substantially undermines it. This follows from the fact that if God exists and knows all, including all future events and choices then those choices cannot really be considered free. Some variants of Christianity go so far as to support the doctrine of predestination which is arguably itself a form of determinism. No, I'm quite sure that free will is in fact much safer without God.

I'll try to address Prager's remaining points in my next post.

Update 8/24/2008: Added link to Part III.

If there is no God (Part I)

If there's one thing it's hard to resist blogging about, it's Dennis Prager's incessant arguments against atheism. For some reason, I tend to take these essays personally. Perhaps it's because at various points in my life I have struggled with the issue of religion so that I take these arguments very seriously.

Prager's latest effort against secularism is entitled "If there is no God" and he lists 14 separate consequences that he believes follow from atheism. He grants at the outset that "it is not possible to prove (or disprove) God's existence," which fact, as Ari Armstrong quite correctly points out, makes any claim to the existence of God arbitrary and thus worthy of immediate dismissal. In the same post, Ari also adds that "[n]evertheless, because claims about God involve absurd metaphysical presumptions, it is possible to disprove God's existence."

But let's leave all that aside for the moment, Prager is effectively conceding that belief in God is an irrational leap of faith but claims that "what is provable is what happens when people stop believing in God." What, as far as Prager is concerns, happens when people stop believing in God?

Well, I think Prager's points can be divided up as follows. I count four separate items that are really all about the claim that the absence of God makes the theory and practice of morality impossible and thus leads to outright immorality and evil. Three items relate to what Prager peceives as the "lack of objective meaning to life." As far a Prager is concerned this results in life being a "tragic fare" for all of us and the, to Prager apparently disturbing fact, that everyone after death everyone ends up the same way. This is followed by several items that may be termed cultural deterioration, including such things as no inspiring art, an increase in profanity, something Prager calls "humanist hubris", and the fact that humans and animals have equal value. Finally, there are the claims that without God, man is determined, has no rights, and is more prone to irrationality.

Here I must remind the reader that I'm not arguing as a representive atheist, not if that means that I'm somehow an average of all atheist ideologies. I can only argue for what I regard as true which is Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand (though of course I am merely presenting my understanding of the ideas -- any errors are my own). Objectivism is of course atheist, but that is a consequence of its regard for reason, not a primary. Prager is also not a general theist, whatever that would mean. In fact Prager, specifies what kind of God he is referring too:

The God of Israel, the God of America's founders, "the Holy God who is made holy by justice" (Isaiah), the God of the Ten Commandments, the God who demands love of neighbor, the God who endows all human beings with certain inalienable rights, the God who is cited on the Liberty Bell because he is the author of liberty.

Unfortunately I dare say that is not nearly as clear as the philosophy of Objectivism. However, since Prager is an advocate of what he terms Judeo-Christian values, I assume by the references that he means the God of Judaism and Christianity.

Let's start with the obvious ones first -- the claims about atheism and morality. Prager makes the following four claims:

1. Without God..there are only subjective opinions that we then label "good" and "evil."
2. Secular philosophy provides no real guidance for an ethical life.
3. Atheism leads to unwillingness to confront evil
4. Atheistic regimes commit more atrocities than religious regimes
   

The fourth claim really needs to be dismissed out of hand. It is simply improper to make an argument based on a relatively lesser number atrocities. To the extent that we disapprove of such things, I think we can all agree to condemn regimes that engage in such acts, whether on a large or small scale. It is simply no use to a victim of the Inquisition that he is a member of a much smaller group of victims than the communists put in the Gulag or the Nazis in the concentration camps.

That leaves the first three claims. Prager clarifies that

...unless there is a moral authority that transcends humans from which emanates an objective right and wrong, "right" and "wrong" no more objectively exist than do "beautiful" and "ugly."

In Prager's argument objectivity in morality comes from "a moral authority that transcends humans." Let's ignore the inherent weaknesses in using an "authority" as a claim to objectivity. Prager clearly conflates what Ayn Rand called "intrinsicism" with objectivity. He regards any view emanating from a human being, no matter what it's based on, as "subjective."

But this is mistaken (to put it charitably) -- man can regard his views as objective if he follows an objective method in reaching his conclusions, a method that relies on facts and reason. Objectivity is not a feature inherent in reality. While the phrase "objective reality" can be used, it is primarily with regard to man's knowledge and ideas to which the idea of objectivity applies. Prager might agree that scientific knowledge and ideas can be objective but he claims that values cannot be. But this is also false: Ayn Rand has shown that values follow the same pattern as other knowledge and that it is possible to arrive at objective values by the application of reason to the facts of man's nature.

Values are that which we pursue or aim to keep. Living things other than human beings automatically pursue those values that are beneficial to their lives, within the limits possible to them. Since a human being, like all living things, is confronted with the alternative of life or death, if he wants to live, he must follow the principles of self-preservation by choice. These principles are the objective requirements of man's life and thus constitute the objective values and virtues that man should follow. There is, of course, much more to it than that, and whole books have been written on the subject. These books also address in some detail what Prager perceives as the missing guidance for ethical behavior. Objectivism agrees with Prager that human beings need guidance and it endeavors to provide it in the form of values such as reason, purpose and self-esteem, as well as virtues, such as rationality, independence, integrity, productiveness, honesty, justice, and pride, as well as a major vice -- the initiation of physical force. If these values were pursued and virtues practiced consistently by leaders of the Western world, I'm quite certain that evil would be confronted. In fact, I would think evil would not get nearly as far as it has.

Next, let's tackle the issue of meaning. This is actually a very fascinating and challenging topic that others have written some important things about. Prager claims that without God our "existence has no more intrinsic purpose or meaning than that of a pebble equally randomly produced." Here I may surprise some and agree completely. It's true: Without God there is no intrinsic purpose or meaning. An intrinsic purpose or meaning would be one intrinsic to the very nature of reality as specified by reality's purported creator and entirely independent of any human values. For religious people, this meaning is very important, very dear to their hearts. And in Judaism and Christianity specifically, the meaning revolves around the overall plan that God has for man and the world he lives in, as well as the existence of an afterlife.

Be that as it may, I cannot help feeling unmoved as my happiness in life does not depend on any such meaning. For me and many others like me, the meaning I receive from my most important values such as work and loved ones is sufficient. I have other broader goals as well, such as helping to spread my values to the wider culture. So frankly, my overall answer to Prager's claim is that my life has meaning and value to me and that is sufficient. I refuse to indulge in fantasies to compensate for any perceived inadequacies in my life. If I am unhappy about some aspect I aim to change it and thus add actual value and meaning to my existence.

Prager regards life without God as "a tragic fare," in which "we live, we suffer, we die." Leaving aside the specific formulation for the moment, why does this constitute a problem to someone who does not wish for the impossible? "Tragic" is an evaluative term. But as far as Objectivism is concerned, in this context, it is a stolen concept ("using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots"). To evaluate requires that one first accept the standard of value: Man's life. It is improper to apply moral terms to basic facts of existence, including man's existence. It is a fundamental fact of living entities, including man, that they live and eventually die. It is not to be evaluated, it is the basis of all evaluation. The fact of man's limited lifespan leads to the need for moral principles. If human beings could live forever, no particular mode of living and thus no ethics or morality would be required.

Prager is also, of course, wrong to summarize human life as "we live, we suffer, we die". He deliberately left out the possibility of human happiness. There is certainly no necessity of suffering as such and modern medical technology has certainly reduced the amount of suffering that man does experience during his life time. More importantly, life has the potential to be a source of great happiness and flourishing, if one's sets rational goals and achieves them. Reality is not inherently set against man. If man accepts the absolutism of reality and follows the principles of morality he can, barring accidents, achieve his values in this world and many have done so. This is what Ayn Rand called the Benevolent Universe Premise.

I don't know that there's much point in addressing Prager's apparent concern about the similar fate of nuns and mass murderer's after death. Why this should concern a rational person is really beyond me. After death only the living remain. It is the responsibility of the living to remember and judge the dead appropriately and justly.

I will continue with Prager's remaining claims in the next part.

Update 8/24/2008: Added link to Part II.

Prager evades Christian Love

In his most recent column Dennis Prager writes down some relatively reasonable thoughts on love. Here's an excerpt that caught my eye:

...But in the love of equals -- i.e., the love between a man and a woman and the love of friends -- it is not only all right to seek to be loved, it is a good thing. Taking the love of a spouse or friend for granted is perhaps the single greatest cause of marital divorce and the breakup of friendships. "What can I do to ensure his/her continuing love?" is a wonderful thing to keep in mind.

3. That is one reason the notion of "unconditional love" is foolish. The fact is, we all earn love, and it is a good thing to have to do so. What possible good purpose can the belief that your spouse loves you unconditionally -- i.e., no matter how you act -- serve? If we believe our spouse loves us no matter what we do, what would motivate us to be on our best behavior at all times? Why be kind even when we are in a foul mood? Why work to stay attractive if he will love me no matter how much I neglect how I look? Why continue to pay attention to her -- like regularly calling her from work -- if I know that even if I ignore her, she will continue to love me?

Unconditional love is not a good idea. I don't know where it originated, but I am quite certain it's relatively recent, a product of an age that has put primary importance on feelings.[emphasis added]

Relatively recent? That is a truly bizarre statement to make for someone who is as enthusiastic about religion as Prager is. Hasn't Christianity has advocated such "unconditional love" for all its history? Here's a relevant passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia on love:

The expression "to love the neighbour for the sake of God" means that we rise above the consideration of mere natural solidarity and fellow-feeling to the higher view of our common Divine adoption and heavenly heritage; in that sense only could our brotherly love be brought near to the love which Christ had for us (John 13:35), and a kind of moral identity between Christ and the neighbour (Matthew 25:40), become intelligible. From this high motive the universality of fraternal charity follows as a necessary consequence. Whosoever sees in his fellow-men, not the human peculiarities, but the God-given and God-like privileges, can no longer restrict his love to members of the family, or co-religionists, or fellow-citizens, or strangers within the borders (Leviticus 19:34), but must needs extend it, without distinction of Jew or Gentile (Romans 10:12), to all the units of the human kind, to social outcasts (Luke 10:33 sqq.), and even to enemies (Matthew 5:23 sq.). Very forcible is the lesson wherein Christ compels His hearers to recognize, in the much despised Samaritan, the true type of the neighbour, and truly new is the commandment whereby He urges us to forgive our enemies, to be reconciled with them, to assist and love them.

And here's another one from a Sermon on love by Martin Luther:

Third, the commandment names, as the sphere of our love, the noblest field, the dearest friend--our neighbor. It does not say, "Thou shalt love the rich, the mighty, the learned, the saint." No, the unrestrained love designated in this most perfect commandment does not apportion itself among the few. With it is no respect of persons. It is the nature of false, carnal, worldly love to respect the individual, and to love only so long as it hopes to derive profit. When such hope ceases, that love also ceases. The commandment of our text, however, requires of us free, spontaneous love to all men, whoever they may be, and whether friend or foe, a love that seeks not profit, and administers only what is beneficial. Such love is most active and powerful in serving the poor, the needy, the sick, the wicked, the simple-minded and the hostile; among these it is always and under all circumstances necessary to suffer and endure, to serve and do good.

No, Mr. Prager it is unconditional love is not a recent idea. It's been around for about 2000 years.

Prager vs. "Secularism"

Award winning blogger Gus van Horn writes today that

Ann Coulter, when she attempts to pretend that there is no such thing as a "religious right", will sometimes cite hit counts from Lexis-Nexis searches for "religious right" in left-wing media reports. I wonder what a similar search of "secular left" among her own writings (or those of other conservatives) would yield. As I have pointed out here before, "secular" and "leftist" do not mean the same thing, but conservatives are working overtime to make you think they do.

Dennis Prager is certainly one of these conservatives. In his new column entitled Secular Europe or Religious America, there is a continuous, frustrating missing of essentials with regard to the issues involved. It seems that Prager, being a religious person, regards the presence or absence of religion as the primary factor in any historical event or social change, even when the evidence shows that this is not the case. For example, Prager writes:

There is no doubt that Western Europe abandoned religion and opted for secularism largely because of the blood spilled in religious wars, just as it abandoned nationalism because of all the blood it spilled in the name of nationalism during World War I.

However, Cohen and others who argue for a secular society ignore the even heavier price in blood Europe has paid for secular fervor. Secular fervor, i.e., communism and Nazism, slaughtered, tortured and enslaved more people in 50 years than all Europe's religious wars did in the course of centuries.

Is the essential point about communism and Nazism that they were both secular systems? Is that what led to the death of millions? That's what Prager wants you to believe here. Religion is a minor killer in comparison to the secular killers. Prager continues:

This point is so obvious, and so devastating to the pro-secularists, that you wonder how they deal with it. But having debated secularists for decades, I predicted Cohen's response virtually word for word on my radio show the day before I spoke with him. He labeled communism and Nazism "religions."

This response completely avoids the issue. Communism and Nazism were indeed religion-like in their hold on people, but they were completely secular movements and doctrines. Moreover, communism was violently anti-religious, and Nazism affirmed pre-Christian -- what we tend to call "pagan" -- values and beliefs.

I would agree that strictly, communism and Nazism were not religions. However, it is also clear as Prager admits, that they had much in common with religions. To term something as "pagan" is not deny its religiosity, merely its connection to monotheism. But leaving that aside, how do we know it was not the religion-like elements within these two movements, perhaps in conjunction with other factors, that are the cause of the greatly increased deaths that resulted when they came into power? In fact, it was exactly the religion-like elements of mysticism, altruism, combined with collectivism and the fact that these totalitarian regimes were able to rely on the capitalist technological base that had been absent when religious regimes had previously ruled Europe, that led to the mass murders. Numerous otherwise religious Germans supported the Nazis (as Paul Johnson documents in his History of Christianity) and the similarity of many elements of Communist doctrine to Christianity is not at all unknown. Stalin, in fact, studied for the priesthood.

I would not deny that these totalitarian regimes were worse than anything Europe had seen during the Middle Ages. However, they were worse because they were more irrational and collectivist not because they happen to be secular. It is not at all inconceivable that a similarly irrational and collectivist religious regime would commit similar atrocities. Certainly, the Islamic regimes today seem to aspire to such a goal.

Prager on subjectivism in religion

Of course, commentator and radio talk show host Dennis Prager would never actually agree with the idea that religion as such is subjective and yet, every once in while, the blatant truth of this proposition has to shine through. In an excellent column today Prager joins those who have been advocating for some time that this war is misnamed and the enemy is very much religious in nature. However, in an interesting passage in this article Prager writes:

With a background in religious studies and having studied Arabic and Islam, many listeners have called my radio show asking me if I consider Islam to be inherently violent or even evil. From 9-11 to now, I have responded that I do not assess religions; I assess the practitioners of religions. Why? Because it is almost impossible to assess any religion since its own adherents so often differ as to what it is. For example, is Christianity the Christianity of most evangelicals or that of the National Council of Churches? On virtually every important moral issue, they differ. The same holds true for right- and left-wing groups within Judaism.[emphasis added]

This has been my criticism of those claiming that religion can provide the basis for morality. Religious people such as Prager claim that without God there can be no morality. Why? Because, Prager would argue, reason is incapable to deriving "ought" from "is" or morality from facts. As a result, supposedly we will just end up with a lot of different opinions of what's right and what's wrong but no absolute or objective standard. Judeo-Christian values, however, do provide absolute right and wrong, it is claimed, and thus people in favor of morality ought to support religion and Judeo-Christian values in particular.

But clearly, by Prager's own admission, if the problem is that people might disagree, religion provides no solution. Even putting aside the issue of the existence of multiple different religions, people within the same religion often disagree quite strongly as to the interpretation of their sacred texts. So frankly, as far as I'm concerned religious people are back to square one.

Needless to say, this ignores multiple other problems with basing morality on religion rather than reason and reality, such as the fact that religion is based on impossible fantasies, which must be taken on faith, the result of which can hardly be considered objective. It is really no surprise that disagreements on interpretations of these fantastic ideas persists.

Judeo-Christian Illusions

In Dennis Prager's latest column in his series defending "Judeo-Christian values," Prager argues that

The cultural civil war in which America is engaged is, in large measure, about American exceptionalism. Conservative America generally believes in the concept; liberal America generally finds it chauvinistic and dangerous.

I'm certainly sympathetic to the Conservative side of this debate, or perhaps more accurately, I'm vastly more opposed to the Liberals on this than to the Conservatives, even if I do find American moral judgment at times inadequately "chauvinistic". What prompted me to write about this column however is not its main topic but a throwaway line at the end of the column in which Prager notes that

Too bad more Europeans did not place a Judeo-Christian morality above secular law. There would not have been a Holocaust.

I have no problem with the fundamental principle involved here, namely that the moral and legal are separate domains and that there are clearly times when the legal code of a given locality is morally wrong and therefore, morally, ought to be opposed, sometimes even violently opposed. That is after all, the point of the Declaration of Independence which essentially argued that a legal authority can and ought to be changed if it violates the higher moral law.

My issue is with the claim that specifically a greater allegiance to "Judeo-Christian morality" would have provided the necessary resistance to the goals of the Nazis and thus prevented another Holocaust. If "Judeo-Christian morality" is to have an influence in the culture, it would have to be through its two main component religions, namely Judaism and Christianity, and of the two Christianity would be the more important since to the extent that Europe was religious on the eve of WWII, it was Catholic or Protestant. Judaism, only recently emancipated, did not, I dare say, play a significant role in shaping the ideas of most Europeans.

Let's assume the following assumptions of Prager are true: That Europe was largely secular on the eve of WWII and that a greater allegiance to "Judeo-Christian values" would have stopped the Nazis. Well, if the representatives of "Judeo-Christian values" in Europe were the Christian clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant, then we would expect them to be the centers of opposition to Nazism. We would expect them to have been the voices in the wilderness opposing the Nazis in the name of "Judeo-Christian values" that they support. What is the historical record?

Mixed, at best, as it turns out. Paul Johnson's History of Christianity is instructive in this respect. On the Catholic attitude toward Hitler he writes:

...Catholics felt no loyalty to Weimar; it was not 'nationalist' enough. And towards Hitler, who was, they were ambivalent. It is true that some bishops were initially hostile to the Nazis...In any case some of the Bishops refused to take a stand against the Nazis, and especially against Hitler, who was becoming increasingly popular...The fact is that most of the bishops were monarchists. They hated liberalism and democracy much more than they hated Hitler...Moreover once Hitler attained power, German Catholicism dropped its 'negative' attitude and assumed a posture of active support. This was carried through by the bishops as early as 28 March 1933, on a firm indication from Rome (advised by Pacelli) that there would be no Vatican support for a policy of opposition.

There's more that could be said and interested readers can read some of the details of Catholic response to Hitler in Johnson's book. Turning now to the Protestants, Johnson informs us that

...if the Catholic attitude toward Hitler was apprehensive and pusillanimous, many of the Protestant clergy were enthusiastic. The collapse of 1918 and the end of the Protestant monarchy had been a disaster for the Lutherans...most Lutherans were afraid their church would collapse once state support was completely removed. So they hated Weimar...Some of them, therefore, looked on Hitler and his movement as saviours.

Johnson also details various attempts by Lutherans to remove "the Jewish background to Christianity." The Lutherans, apparently, would resist any description of their values as "Judeo-Christian."

Nevertheless, even if we grant that much of what passes for Christianity at that time was hypocritical, it remains true that for a large number (the majority?) of devout Christians, Nazism presented little or no moral difficulty. Perhaps Prager should keep that in mind the next time he argues that that an increase in religious values can protect us from the evils of this world.

Abortion

Even though I got bored with my analysis of the Prager-Harris interview, I thought it important to address one last issue in it, namely the issue of abortion. During the interview Prager issues the following challenge:

DP: Well, then, that may be a result of your secularism and my religiosity. For example, where does your secular reason lead you to on abortion? A woman wants an abortion for no other reason, no health reason, as in ninety-five percent of the cases, because she did not use birth control and she does not want to come to term. What is your rational, secular view of that abortion? Is it moral, immoral, amoral? I’m not talking legality, I’m talking morality.

Since Prager is not interested in the legality of it, I'll address the morality of it only. In general I would say it is moral, though in specific cases it may be immoral. I hope I will be allowed to specify context here as in some ways this is analogous to the morality of "killing." The morality of any given "killing" depends on who you are killing and why -- is it self-defense or murder? Now, admittedly in the case of abortion many of these questions are eliminated but not all. The morality of an abortion depends on two factors. First, it depends only in a limited way on the status of fetus. From an Objectivist viewpoint, following Aristotelian terminology, the fetus is a potential human being, not an actual one. Thus, rights do not apply to it until it is born. However, there is a further issue which has to do with the development of the fetus from a zygote to an embryo and fetus, all the way to what amounts to a baby.

Therefore I would say that at the beginning of the pregnancy, in what is usually termed the first trimester, since one is dealing with a rather undeveloped growth, abortions for almost any reason are moral. So in the case of Prager's question of "an abortion for no other reason, no health reason...because she did not use birth control and she does not want to come to term" I think the answer in the first trimester is clear. It is moral. I think it would in fact be immoral if she were forced to carry the child to term. The woman should however be condemned for not using birth-control, on egoistic grounds. It is not in the woman's rational self interest to prefer abortions to birth-control.

Further along in the pregnancy, the onus of moral justification falls more heavily on the woman than before both in terms of the rationality of the decision and in terms of the moral status of the fetus. A morality that upholds life as the standard value does not encourage life-destroying actions if they could have been prevented. As the fetus enters its second trimester and beyond, it becomes more and more like a baby, a fact that cannot be ignored by women. However, there are still cases even late when abortion can be moral. Clearly, the mother's life always trumps the fetus, as the born take moral precendence over the not-yet born, the actual over the potential. Additionally, there may be cases when substantial genetic defects are discovered late in the pregnancy. But barring those cases, in a case of a late term abortion "for no other reason, no health reason...because she did not use birth control and she does not want to come to term" the woman would be immoral and she should be condemned, both because she waited too long putting her own life at greater risk and now requiring a major operation and because the fetus is almost indistinguishable from a baby at this point and she had an opportunity to eliminate it before it reached this stage.

As an aside, the specific procedure used to abort the fetus seems completely irrelevant to the morality of the operation. Here, once the abortion has been evaluated as moral, the only question should be which procedure will be best for the woman in preserving her health.

For further information on abortion see this site.

Interview Analysis: Part V

Skipping some of the small-talk, the next important exchange in the Prager-Harris interview proceeds as follows:

DP: I think the university is a moral failure because it is radically secular. You think it’s a failure because they’re just weak-willed and politically correct. So that’s one difference between us. But let’s go to your basic argument; there are two of them. One, reason will lead us to a better world, and [two], that religion is a real problem.

Let me begin with the religion part, which is your favorite part in the bulk of your book. Why can’t you say, “Some religion is terrific, and some religion leads to evil?” Why the blanket dismissal? I am guided by religion, and I bet I have very similar values in many areas to you.

SH: Right. Right. Well, the first thing to say is that most of our religious texts have in them propositions that are entirely noble and wise and blameless and brilliant, and of course there is no issue to take with them. You can’t argue, really, in any deep way, against the Golden Rule. It’s a beautiful distillation of our ethical intuitions. But first of all, there are beautiful statements of equal usefulness in many other books.

Mr. Harris preliminary remark here is largely true, even if I would disagree with his example of the Golden Rule ("do to others as you would have them do to you", Luke, 6-31). But in fact, if one takes some of the pronouncements in Bible and places them within a rational context they can be interpreted rationally and certainly not all are wrong. But that hardly justifies using the Bible as a basis for a moral code.

DP: Like what? I use my Bible as the basis of my values. What book can I look in to learn Sam Harris’s values?

SH: Well, it’s certainly distributed over many books.

DP: Well, give me five. See, if you don’t have a text, that means Sam Harris is the author of his values. And I don’t trust that.

SH: No, no, I would certainly never claim that.

The above exchange represents the crux of the problem for religious people. This goes beyond books. What Prager is really hinting at here is that for him, all moral values ultimately derive from authorities. Thus Prager thinks he is in the best possible position, as he is relying on the Ultimate authority, namely God. The most revealing statement is Prager's "if you don't have a text, that means Sam Harris is the author of his values... [a]nd I don't trust that." An author, at least in fiction, is someone who makes up a world of his own and puts it on paper. The possibility that Prager fails to acknowledge is that values and virtues, as principles, could be discovered, rather than authored, just as scientific principles in other fields are discovered. That is part of what would make them objective, despite being discovered by a specific person. This is of course only the tip of the iceberg and much more would need to be discussed to prove this but Prager is wrong to dismiss the possibility. Ideally, Mr. Harris should have challenged Prager along those lines.

Let's continue with the interview analysis.

DP: OK, then, tell me. I tell you the author of my values is my religion, Judaism, or broadly speaking, Judeo-Christian values. Where can I look for your values?

SH: Well, honestly, it’s distributed. You can certainly find many of them in the Bible, in your own book. You can find many of them in Ecclesiastes, say. Or you can find them in the New Testament. I think the Sermon on the Mount is a brilliant and quite a wonderful document, and an ideal that many of us should try to live for, or live toward. But where I want to locate the source of our values is in our free inquiry of the world, in the present moment, and in dialogue with human beings in the present moment, in this generation, in the midst of our problems.

DP: Why does one preclude the other? I believe in the text, I believe it’s divine, and I believe that we have to look at the moment to figure out how to apply the text to the moment.

I understand what Mr. Harris is trying to say but given his premises, Prager clearly has the upper hand. If Mr. Harris insists on relying on traditional texts as source for moral values, he can't then claim that "free inquiry of the world" is the source. It really is one or the other. Free inquiry, if by that he means reason, if consistently applied will lead to the rejection of reliance on any texts. But if texts are the ultimate source, if the starting point is necessarily what's written in some text then what is wrong with Prager's approach? Mr. Harris needs to clearly distinguish the fact that he may have some values in common with religious people from relying on religious sources for the justification of his values. That said, his praise of the Sermon on the Mount puts him in the category of people who have secularized the religious ethics without any attempt at rational analysis.

I think for now I'm going to cut my analysis short, as I am getting somewhat bored with it. There are so many errors on both sides that it is too depressing to continue. Nevertheless, I'm sure I'll address much of the same issues in the future.

Interview Analysis: Part IV

The interview continues:

DP: I will defend the religious books, but you need to defend the alternative. Why is it that religious folks whom you fear turn out to be more morally accurate today than the secular folks at the university?

SH: Well, actually, I didn’t concede that first point. I think you would find that healthy people are going to be more or less the same across the board. But I agree with you that our discourse about any number of a variety of things right now in academia has really become unhitched from morality, as you and I know it.

I'm not entirely sure why Mr. Harris insists on substituting medical for moral terminology here. Healthy people and immoral people are not mutually exclusive categories. This seems to be part of the general trend on the part of Liberals to define evil as some kind of psychological disease. Also, Mr Harris should be careful here in his assumption that the morality he talks about and the morality Prager talks about amount to the same thing.

DP: I was going to say, “God bless you for saying it,” but ‘Spirituality’ bless you for saying it. And I’m not being sarcastic. I admire the fact that you, who are in academia, would say that. But don’t you ask what the root cause might be? To me it is clear: secularism.

As I have already discussed to some extent in Part II of this analysis it is not the secular nature of the universities that is to blame, but their irrationalism. Also, it is not at all clear to me that the original claim by Prager, that a thousand evangelical ministers would have greater moral acuity than a thousand liberal arts professors, would in fact be so obviously true. I'll concede that due to the irrationality of the universities it is more likely than not to be true in most cases (and certainly in the case of the war). However, religion comes with its own inherent irrationalities and it very much depends on the specific issue whether the ministers or the professors would be more irrational.

SH: Actually, no, I think the root cause in academia, certainly liberal academia now, is what we call “political correctness.” There are so many taboos in academia and in our culture at large, the one of which that I’m going up against most directly in my book is the taboo around criticizing faith itself, which is something you and I are going to differ on. But, there again…

Once again I have to bemoan the superficiality of Mr. Harris's analysis of the universities. "Political Correctness" is at best a description of a symptomatic trend. It is not an explanation of why institutions supposedly concerned with reason have turned against it. For a deeper analysis from a Conservative source I again suggest Lynne Cheney's Telling the Truth and, even better, from an Objectivist source, Dr. Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels. Fundamentally the answer comes from philosophy. Perhaps I will attempt to sketch a detailed answer at some point.

DP: Oh, no, there’s no taboo on criticizing Judaism or Christianity. There’s only a taboo in the university on criticizing Islam. It’s just… I differ with your read.

SH: Right. Well, I actually find that people are very reluctant to criticize faith itself, even when they don’t have it. I mean, in the privacy of their own salon, they’re going to speak wildly about anybody.

DP: Christianity? I mean, everyone who goes to university learns that Christianity is an impediment to progress. I mean, it is part of the liberal arts curriculum.

I think I agree with Prager here. Universities these days feel very comfortable in criticising Christianity and even Judaism to some extent. Of course, there would be plenty to criticise. However, since they are criticising it from an multicultural, post-modernist standpoint, they are not much better than what they are criticising. The interview continues:

SH: Right. Well, you know, I don’t think this is at the core of either our agreement or our differences on this subject. I think that the problem we have to face now is, people are flying planes into our buildings because they believe their book was written by God. And it doesn’t seem to me that our proper response to that predicament is to say, “No, no, you have it wrong; OUR book was written by God.” That’s not a basis for dialogue; that’s not a basis for sorting out the excesses of human irrationality.

This is arguably Mr. Harris' most intelligent statement in this interview so far but he still gets something important wrong. He says "that's not a basis for dialogues; that not a basis for sorting out the excesses of human irrationality." Why on earth would anyone want to have a dialogue with people who fly airplanes into buildings? The response needs to be to locate the source of the problem and destroy it. A dialogue is no longer possible.

DP: Yet, ironically, it is really only very strongly religious Christians, by and large – and I’m not a Christian, I’m a Jew – who have been at the forefront of criticizing Islam today. And they are called, by your whole secular liberal world, racists and bigots for doing so.

SH: Right, right. I agree with you totally. I think it’s profoundly ironic that the most sensible statements about Islam to appear in our culture have come from our own religious dogmatists.

DP: It’s not ironic! Sam Harris, that’s where you and I differ, and let me just say, I appreciate your honesty, I really do. You are very rare, and I am happy to know you. But to me it is not ironic! It is their faith that gives them their [values and their] strength to say it.

SH: Well, then, I think we’re seeing it slightly differently. You take someone like Falwell, or Pat Robertson, who very clearly appreciate the danger posed to us by Islam. It seems to me they’re uniquely in a position to appreciate it, because they understand that people really do believe the letter of their holy books. And they’ve read the Koran, and they’ve perhaps read the Hadith, the commentarial tradition around it, and they know that the contents of these documents are antithetical to living in tolerance in a pluralistic world. And what has really hampered liberal discourse, intellectual discourse, ivory tower discourse on this subject is that secular people really cannot get it into their heads that when the guy looks into the video camera and says, “We love death more than the infidels love life,” and blows himself up, he really means it. He didn’t blow himself up for economic reasons.

DP: That’s right! You’re right. I agree with your critique perfectly. So then, where do we differ?

What the above exchange proves is not the superiority of a religious point of view over a secular one but rather the superiority of moral judgement, even coming from a religiuos point of view, to moral agnosticism. There are specific historical reasons why the current intellectual landscape is what it is. But it's quite clear that proper moral judgment is not inherent in religion (as can be seen in the current religious left for example or even in some of the less pleasant moral conclusions of the right), nor necessarily absent from the secular as can certainly seen in the Ayn Rand Institute. Moral judgement questions ultimately reduce to questions in the subject of epistemology -- the theory of knowledge. In order to establish moral conclusions we must first know how to establish any conclusions. It is as a result of the disintegration of epistemology on the secular side over the last few centuries that the average secular university professor is no longer able to judge right from wrong. The religious side has been subject to much the same influence though not to the same degree, which is why it frequently appears more rational than the the secular side.

Interview Analysis: Part III

Continuing with the exchange, Sam Harris answers:

SH: Well, you bring up a very interesting point, and there are many different forces in our discourse intersecting here. First, let me just agree with you that liberal, ivory-tower discourse right now is certainly in many sectors bereft of real moral acuity, and the kind of discourse you have about Israel in particular vis a vis the conflict with the Palestinians – all of that is deplorable, and we might want to get into that.

Now, I'll give Mr. Harris some credit here. He seems to understand implicitly that the universities have issues (strange as it sounds, some people actually do believe that they are seats of "secular reason") but his understanding appears superficial. He does not zoom in on the source of the problem but merely mentions one of the most obvious manifestations -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, he appears willing to condemn the universities in that respect which is certainly a positive thing. Harris concludes his answer by asking Prager to define morality.

SH: But your first question, really, it all turns on what you mean by morality.

DP: I’m very precise: Good and evil.

SH: Right. Take something even more precise than that. Just our aversion to human cruelty.
DP: OK. That’s great. I’m with you. Go ahead.

As usual in the above exchange both sides have problems. Harris's attempt to have Prager clarify what he means by morality is very appropriate. Prager's response is quite insufficient. However, Harris's attempt to be more precise is arguably even worse. Let's start with Prager.

Prager, due to his focus on the amoralism of what he terms the "secular left," clearly assumes that the terms "good and evil" are not controversial, or more accurately, that if they are accepted, there is no discussion about their application, that is, one either accepts good and evil or one does not, but if one does, there is no disagreement. This is clearly nonsense. It is true that there are now large segments in academia that do not think that morality and moral terms are relevant or useful. However, it is also true that there are other sections of academia and the left that have not abandoned those terms but insist on applying them and justifiying them in quite different ways than Prager and his religious friends would. Peter Singer, for example, certainly accepts good and evil and bases his defense of good and evil on utilitarian grounds. Prager and Singer have very little in common. Among other horrendous views, Peter Singer is a defender of animal rights. So Prager evades the existence of other moral views. What Prager should have said, if he wanted to be somewhat more specific, would be something along the lines of: "Good and Evil as established by traditional Judeo-Christian ethics." That is certainly what Prager believes and this moral view can be distinguished from other moral views by looking at what traditional Judaism and Christianity have held to be moral.

Mr. Harris apparently thinks that "our aversion to human cruelty" is more precise a view of morality than merely stating "good and evil." I am frankly baffled by what Mr. Harris means here but he elaborates as follows.

SH: I think that all of us who are well wired neurologically, and do not come into this world with whatever causes, you know, sociopathy – all of us have a predisposition to recoil at cruelty such as torturing other people certainly, and animals, and so forth. And we can all agree on that. I would argue that we don’t get that out of our religious books. In fact, our religious books offer rather equivocal testimony on the moral status of cruelty. There’s a lot of cruelty in them.

Whenever moderns start bringing in neurological explanations, I get highly suspicious. This is the same kind of thinking that leads to the denial of consciousness and free will. Here, Harris appears to be arguing that we are born with some form of empathy. I am not certain of this at all. I wonder what his evidence is. It seems to me that there is, for example, plenty of anecdotal evidence of cruelty in even young children. I still fail to see the relevance of this to moral questions. Whether or not we are born with a certain level of built-in empathy is clearly overshadowed but the vast amounts of lack of empathy throughout history. Certainly, religious books have plenty of cruelty, though particularly in the last century and until just recently, cruelty has not been limited to, nor primarily derived from religious sources. And I still fail to see how any of this is making morality more precise. It seems to be getting us off the subject completely. The most generous interpretation one could put on what Harris is saying is that cruelty, and thus evil, is learned, not inborn.

This is true but does not clarify very much what good and evil actually consists of. Again cruelty means different things in different moral views, whether religious or secular. And I could think of some cases where cruelty would be morally justified. But let's leave that aside for now and proceed with the analysis.

Interview Analysis: Part II

I'll proceed with the analysis of the Dennis Prager interview with Sam Harris. Let us look at the exchange immediately following the intial challenge. There are numerous things to criticise on both sides of this exchange. To begin with there are a number of incorrect assumptions evident in Prager's question:

DP: So, let me ask you this: I believe that if I took a thousand evangelical ministers – the folks that I think you have a certain fear of following their values – and I took a thousand professors in the liberal arts, I am convinced to the point that I would bet every penny I have made, that the moral acuity of the thousand evangelical ministers would dwarf the moral acuity of a thousand liberal arts professors. For which reason Lawrence Summers, for example, the president of Harvard, announced two years ago that the seat – the seat – of antisemitism in America had shifted to the university. The university had been the seat of support for Stalin. The university in Germany was the seat of the place to get Nazi philosophers. Where you get your faith in secular reason is to me unbelievable, given the record of the secular rationalists.

Note that Prager concludes by denigrating Harris's "faith in secular reason" -- a contradiction in terms, strictly speaking, though unfortunately in Mr. Harris's case probably correct. But the problem is that neither Prager's comparison of evangelical ministers with liberal arts professors, nor his other examples from history are in fact proper examples of "secular rationalists." (As an aside I reject the adjective "secular" as applied to reason -- in actuality anything else is not reason, even if similar in form).

Let's start with the liberal arts professors. To claim that they are representatives or advocates of reason betrays ignorance of either reason or the professors' views. Ironically, numerous illustrations of the irrationality of professors have been written by Conservatives. For example, in Lynne Cheney's (1995) excellent book Telling the Truth she notes that:

In fields ranging from education to art to law, the attack on truth has been accompanied by an assault on standards. The connection is seldom made clear. Indeed, one of the characteristics of postmodern thought is that it is usually asserted rather than argued, reasoned argument having been rejected as one of the tools of the white male elite. But the thinking seems to be roughly that absent external reality, distinctions of any kind are meaningless. (p. 18, italics added)

So yes, liberal arts professors may indeed be secular, in the sense of not religious, particularly when it comes of Christianity and Judaism (they frequently have no such hang-ups with respect to other mystical systems), but they are not rational and it is therein that the explanation for their lack of standards as well as values lies. As Cheney writes:

No accomplishment can be judged superior to any other--except as it promotes the interests of desired groups. Without the objective measures that an external reality would provide, who can really say, for example, that the work of some students is better than others? (p. 18)

Who indeed? But the rejection of reality is fundamentally irrational and thus cannot be used to impugn reason. It is therefore no surprise that the university is now "the seat of antisemitism in America." Antisemitism frequently goes hand in hand with irrationalism as was detailed in Dr. Peikoff's book The Ominous Parallels.

Let's proceed to the historical example that Prager gives. I admit I was initially confused by Prager's statement that "the university had been the seat of support for Stalin" -- I thought he meant Russian Universities, which were of course state controlled and would not have any choice in the matter, but obviously he means American and more generally European Universities. This is true, but again, what makes Prager think that American and European communists and communist sympathizers in the Universities are "secular rationalists?" Again, certainly communists are materialists and thus secular. But Prager, as someone who has studied about communism at the universities surely knows that Marxism is anything but rational, explicitly rejecting Aristotelian logic for dialectical materialism that allows for contradictions, as well as accepting polylogic, since there is bourgois logic and proletarian logic. This is not to mention some of the other even more irrational post-Marxist doctrines that the later supporters of the Soviet Union adopted. So again we come to the conclusions that, certainly, there has been secular support for evil but it isn't actually rational.

Finally, Prager's mentions that "the university in Germany was the seat of the place to get Nazi philosophers." As it happens a whole book, already mentioned above, has been written on precisely this subject. In The Ominous Parallels, Dr. Peikoff describes in some detail that "that German Nazism was the inevitable climax of a centuries-long philosophic development, preaching three fundamental ideas: the worship of unreason, the demand for self-sacrifice and the elevation of society or the state above the individual." Again, I would hardly consider the "worship of unreason" to be representative of the views of the "secular rationalists." Therefore, while it is true much of Nazism support came from the German universities, that support cannot be used to attack "secular rationalists" because the professors were in fact not rational and not even entirely secular, as the presence of various mystical movements at the time indicates. Nazism, though frequently (and correctly) termed a "secular ideology" was in many ways far more compatible with various modes of mysticism than Marxism, which was explicitly materialist.

Interview Analysis: Part I

I'm going to leave the DIM Hypothesis for now because I feel a great desire to comment on the August 16, 2004 Dennis Prager interview with author Sam Harris (transcript available here). It is not so much that I have great sympathy for Mr. Harris, nor do I harbor any hatred for Mr. Prager. Mr. Harris is author of the book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and Future of Reason. The book's description, available on Mr. Harris's website, is instructive in this regard:

This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in the modern world. The End of Faith provides a harrowing glimpse of mankind’s willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when these beliefs inspire the worst of human atrocities. Harris argues that in the presence of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer expect to survive our religious differences indefinitely. Most controversially, he maintains that “moderation” in religion poses considerable dangers of its own: as the accommodation we have made to religious faith in our society now blinds us to the role that faith plays in perpetuating human conflict. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism in an attempt to provide a truly modern foundation for our ethics and our search for spiritual experience.

One wonders in vain how Mr. Harris can warn us against the suspension "of reason in favor of religious beliefs," as well as that "'moderation' in religion poses considerable dangers of its own" and then a few sentences later admit that he himself "draws on insights from...Eastern mysticism." My viewpoint in all this is probably no secret but will become clear as I proceed with an analysis of the relevant parts of the interview.

After brief smalltalk Prager offers a challenge:

DP: How ironic. You could have come into the studio.

The book is “The End of Faith.” Let me begin with this challenge, because you make a strong indictment against using ancient texts, which I believe in, as a source of values. First, why do you believe, since you do believe, obviously, that in secularism and in reason lie the answers to the moral problems of humanity? Is that a fair summary of your views?

SH: Yes, up to a point. I’m actually not discounting the range of human experience we might want to call “spiritual” or “mystical.” In fact, I just think that we can explore that domain well within the bounds of rationality, which is to say there’s never a reason to make claims about the universe that can’t be substantiated, either by empirical evidence in a scientific sense, or by first person, introspective evidence. So, basically what I’m arguing for is intellectual honestly.

DP: OK. So am I. That’s one thing we both are arguing for, so that’s why I was so anxious to have you on – I suspect that does motivate you because, after all, any guy who takes your views and attacks Noam Chomsky at all is OK in my book.

SH: OK.

What is one to say in response? Frankly, already at this point I knew that Mr. Harris would ultimately get nowhere with Prager. Why? Because he is already conceding the whole case in his first substantive response. Of course, we already know from the description of his book noted above the Mr. Harris is not a big believer in consistency, or to put it more bluntly he thinks contradictions are in fact okay as long we don't go to extremes (So much for a so-called advocate of reason!). So apparently we don't need to dismiss the spiritual or mystical. Everything's on the table. The entire history of philosophy in which the mystical was examined in great detail and rejected is simply swept aside. Like a true modern, when confronted by a confident religionist, Mr. Harris clearly believes we need to keep an open mind with respect to such things. Pathetic! We'll discover more on how Mr. Harris actually thinks we arrive at moral conclusions later in this interview.

If I were to try to answer Prager's question in brief, I would say the following.

DP: First, why do you believe, since you do believe, obviously, that in secularism and in reason lie the answers to the moral problems of humanity? Is that a fair summary of your views?

GR: Morality is, as Ayn Rand correctly stated, "a code of values to guide man's choices and actions." The Oxford English Dictionary defines "secular" as "Of or pertaining to the world." There is only one world -- the one in which man lives. Reason, is man's only means of knowledge, including knowledge of what he should do and why, i.e., his virtues and values. Therefore objective values are necessarily dependent on a secular context and derived by reason. Any attempt to derive such values on an "otherworldly" or religious basis are literally absurd. So yes, as it happens, that is in fact a fair summary of my views.

Needless to say, in order to be fully convincing to anybody, this would require much elaboration but in brief that is the answer to Prager's challenge. I will proceed with the analysis of the interview in the next post.

Prager's Chorus
Actually, I almost returned to writing in this blog several days ago when I first came across Dennis Prager's column Monkeys and atheists . As usual, Prager returns to the false alternative between "randomness is the creator" and God as the "Creator/Designer." It was not so much this theme that upset me but the way Prager presents it and the implicit "you would have to be a complete moron to believe otherwise" attitude that pervades the column. At first the column so outraged me that I thought I had to respond to it in detail and take it apart line by line. I even considered writing a reverse column, perhaps titled "Monkeys and theists." But in the end I thought better of it. I reminded myself that I have addressed the essential issue before (although for some reason I can't locate it in my archives). Briefly, the Chance/Randomness vs. Creator/Designer false alternative is resolved via the forgotten third option of Identity/Causality and the absurdities in the culture and science have to do with the decline of reason not the decline of religion. And frankly I have better things to do than constantly harp on Prager's misrepresentations of the supposed consequences of secular thinking.

I'm back
It's been brought to my attention that I haven't posted in a while which is certainly true. Let me explain: As regular readers of this blog know, most of its content has been devoted to comments on the Dennis Prager show, which I used to listen to on a daily basis. However, since I have recently stopped listening to the show, much of my inspiration for writing has gone away. In addition, the company where I work has quite properly issued reminders that access to the Internet is provided to employees and contractors such as myself for business purposes only. As a result, I have stopped all non-business web browsing at work and this eliminated literally several hours of Internet time a day and thus virtually all my blog writing time since I don't tend to browse the web as much when I'm at home. Nevertheless, a number of issues have come up recently which do require some comment so I have returned.

On today's Dennis Prager show, Prager read from his weekly column. This week's column makes a very good point about people's talents in art not guaranteeing their having any wisdom in other fields such as politics. Prager wrote: "As a rule, over the last few centuries, artists have been more likely to be morally confused than members of almost any other profession (except academia). " This is certainly quite true, although I can think of a few examples from the field of science that would not imply much wisdom in that profession either, but then Prager did say "except academia." Of course, as usual what I find frustrating, is not Prager's main point, with which I agree but Prager's comment on why this is in fact the case, namely artists secularism. In fact Prager went on to say that he has hardly met any secular people that he concluded possessed wisdom. Apparently by its very nature secularism makes the presence of wisdom highly unlikely. He thought that of course occasionally there were very nice secular people and everybody knows there are many religious "jerks" but wisdom is generally absent among the secular.

First, it is unclear what Prager means by religious "jerks." Does he mean that these people would be wise if it weren't for the fact that they are bad? Why can't I as a secular person say that just as there are religious "jerks," there are secular "jerks" and yet at the same time there are numerous wise people among the secular? There are in fact numerous secular people with a great amount of wisdom. Wisdom is not some special mystic quality that only religious people possess. Two things are necessary for wisdom: Knowledge and thinking. Neither is the exclusive prerogative of either religion or secularism. Once again it is necessary to recall that secularism simply means: "indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). It does not say anything about what in fact one does not reject, is not indifferent to, or does not exclude. Ayn Rand, Sydney Hooke, Karl Marx and Jean Paul Sartre were secular, in fact, they were all atheists. But they didn't have much in common otherwise. Ayn Rand was an Objectivist with all that implies, Sidney Hooke was a Pragmatist, while at the same time being somewhat of a socialist but also an fervent anti-communist, Karl Marx was the father of Marxist Communism, Jean Paul Sartre was an Existentialist and in some moods a Marxist. (By the way, of the four, I would say the first two possessed some wisdom, the last two very little).

My basic point is really that goodness and wisdom are not special to religion at all. Religion is a set of beliefs, customs and instituitions. Over the millenia there have been a wide variety of religions and religious movements some with more wisdom and some with considerably less. It is not so much that the most wise periods were the least religious, but more importantly, the most wise periods were the most rational, whether most people were religious or secular. I believe religion cannot ultimately be as rational as a proper secular philosophy such as Objectivism but unfortunately most secular philosophies ever since Kant have been considerably more irrational than the mainstream religions. It is a common mistake to consider the 20th century as somehow illustrating the hazards of secularism. What it in fact demonstrates are the hazards of irrationalism, an irrationalism that is clearly making its influence felt on both religious and secular people of many varieties.

Prager often accuses people in the secular left of not having any good arguments because they are not exposed to any real criticism of their position. Prager certainly seems to have much experience debating people of the secular left. However, it does seem that he does not have much experience debating people of the secular right and thus he cannot take their views very seriously, much as he accuses that the left cannot take religious views very seriously.

I haven't commented on Dennis Prager's show lately since he hasn't said anything new or particularly offensive to me or at least not anything that's offensive in new ways. It may need reminding that I mostly agree with Prager and it is usually only when he makes what I consider grossly illogical statements that I feel particularly compelled to set him straight. Today's show while discussing the meaning of Passover did include yet another offhand comment on the absurdity of a universe without God but then I have already commented on the flaws with that particular view last week on April 3.

While commenting on Passover Prager made some interesting points, some of which I agree with. Just to review, Passover tells the story of the Israelites exodus from Egypt where they had been slaves. Prager makes the point that in addition to being physically freed Israelites had to free themselves from the ideas of Egypt. Egypt's culture was focused on death as evidenced by the pyramids, which while architecturally impressive structures, were giant tombs, as well as the so-called Egyptian Book of the Dead. Prager argues that on the other hand, the Torah or teaching that God provided the Israelites is focused on life as evidenced by the kosher rules, including prohibition on drinking any blood (hence the large quantities of salt in kosher meats to draw the blood out before eating) and the prohibition of combining milk and meat (supposedly to avoid mixing a symbol of life -- milk -- with a symbol of death -- dead flesh). In addition Jewish priests (which today means descendents of the priests that originally served the Jewish temple) are prohibited from visiting cemeteries. I might also add that it is widely known that Jews cheer drinks with the phrase L'Chaim meaning "To life".

I can agree with Prager on Egypt but I only have limited agreement on Judaism. Egypt, to the best of my knowledge, was indeed a culture devoted to death as shown by the examples that Prager gave. It is also illustrated by the little progress it achieved in 3000 years of history. However, it is much more difficult to make the case that Judaism is the religion of life, especially based on a few rather nonsensical symbolic theological commands. This much can be said in Judaism's favor based on my own knowledge and experience. It is focused on living this life according to the rules God gave because God gave them. However, it cannot be fully considered life oriented because while it does focus on this life, it examines it in light of laws that came from outside life. Fortunately, it does have an effective fail-safe mechanism, a passage in the Bible that is interpreted to mean that since God ordered man to live by the laws, he never intended death (or even injury) to result from them. This is interpreted in such a way that almost no law is to be followed if it results in one's own injury or death. Also, it is quite clear that the more rational Greek philosophy had a substantial influence on Judaism making it more difficult to pursue some of its more absurd notions. Today, both Judaism and Christianity have been substantially tempered by the Enlightenment ideas of the 18th century and it is those ideas of reason and individual rights that are the true culture of life.

Prager's second hour included an interview with an Palestinian Arab intellectual which once again illustrated the fantasy world in which the Arabs live. Interviews such as this one give little hope for the future in the Middle East. Finally, Prager's third hour today discussed the absurdity of the Dutch court giving former Holland prime ministerial candidate Pim Fortuyn's assassin a mere 18 years in prison and once again pointed out that far from Europe being morally superior for having abolished the death penalty, it is American that is morally superior for preserving it and not keeping murderers alive.